One Texas home designer shows off what he can build under Austin’s McMansion ordinance. Based on all 69 pictures of the house under construction, how different is it from a McMansion?

1. It looks relatively large. At the least, it is not a small house.

2. It is built in a more traditional style: no two-story entryway, no Palladian window, there is some lawn around the whole house (though not much on the sides of the house), there is a limited number of roof gables. There is a real front porch where residents can actually sit. At the same time, the siding is not too distinctive, there don’t appear to be too many windows on the sides of the house (the neighbors are fairly close), and the kitchen is fairly typical dark cabinets, granites countertops (including an island), and stainless steel appliances.

3. The first floor has an open floor plan where the living/family room to the right of the front door opens right up into the kitchen. There are at least two bathrooms. Oddly, there are photos of two laundry rooms.

Zillow suggests the home has 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, is 2,248 square feet, and is in a neighborhood with a range of home values. This particular house seems fairly muted compared to some of his other designs. It is hard to know exactly how much the Austin McMansion ordinance changed what could be done with this particular house but the McMansion designs elsewhere seem more stereotypical.

One last question: the designer appears to have labeled the home a McMansion. Given the loaded nature of this term, is this the best strategy?